The Greene Farm Archaeology Project (GFAP), in Warwick, Rhode Island, began in 2004 as a transdisciplinary and long-term project designed to facilitate research among a broad range of scholars and volunteers, using established and experimental archaeological methods. The central focus of the project is on researching 400 years of cultural and natural landscape transformations on one of the few remaining Providence Plantations (see project wiki http://proteus.brown.edu/greenefarm/Home).

Greene Farm landscape (2004).
In 2005, artist Lee Fearnside approached GFAP interested in filming a documentary called Telling Stories, focusing on how archaeologists create knowledge through discovering history. As archaeologists and historians having little knowledge or experience with filmmaking, we permitted Fearnside access to the project without considering how her work might affect our practices directly and indirectly. We were especially interested to see how Fearnside would translate and represent archaeology in her art, as she had no archaeological background except for having read Deetz’s In Small Things Forgotten. Over the course of two years, Fearnside filmed the field crew during excavations and in the laboratories. Though still a work in progress, I recently screened a rough cut of the film for the members of the Greene Farm field crew and gathered their response through a detailed survey and several discussions.
As an anthropologically trained archaeologist, I am particularly interested in examining the reception of the film by those whose work, voices, images, and interpretations appear in it. The field crew’s feedback and reactions are especially valuable in thinking about the many implications for relationships between artistic film/creative documentation and archaeology projects, and more importantly, the implications for how digital media affects archaeological practice. The following commentary focuses on an experiment stemming from the crews’ mixed reactions to the film. This is not an attempt to discuss the quality of the film (which is remarkable) or whether the filmmaker successfully captures the “creation of knowledge”. Instead, the purpose is to explore some of the questions and observations resulting from the intersection of the creative documentation and archaeological projects, as initially raised through the voices of the crew.

Filming Archaeology
Lee Fearnside is designing Telling Stories as, “an experimental video documentary about the process of discovering history in Rhode Island. The video discusses the re-creation of history and the politics of the historical narrative by juxtaposing the archaeological process with video interpretations created in the studio” (Fearnside 2006, see http://proteus.brown.edu/greenefarm/2272 ).
As an artist, Fearnside brings her own agenda, training, and notions of experimentation to the creative process:
This project challenges not only interpretations of Rhode Island history, but also the form of traditional documentaries. Documentaries typically rely on ideas of objective observation and scholarly authority, such as the use of non-personal filming techniques like fixed cameras and eye-level vantage points to suggest that the camera is invisible or doesn’t affect the scene. The form Telling Stories begins to subvert the documentary form. The subjective style of camera, both differing vantage points and switching from hand-held to fixed camera, personalizes the videomaker as an author. I have edited this sequence in a way that moves in and out of documentary form – there are voiceovers but they are not identified, there are disembodied figures and little visual context but a suggestion of a linear progression. The disjunctive editing of vignettes forces to the viewer to be more active – the viewer has to work to piece together narrative threads. This piecing together gives the viewer the authority to create meaning and different interpretations of the material. This act of interpretation itself is part of the intention of questioning the writing of history (Fearnside 2006).
As seen in the film cut debuted in Bristol at CHAT 2006, Fearnside successfully documents the many fields of our archaeological work in a sophisticated manner that blends the fields’ boundaries and gives equal weight to each (Hodder 2000:17; Witmore 2004:134).

Archaeologists present Telling Stories at CHAT 2006. (from http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/archaeolog/2006/12/chat_2006_some_highlights.html)
Rather than separating field from lab, and objects from interpretations, Telling Stories offers strands of continuity, which Fearnside is conscious to maintain throughout. Fearnside constructs these continuities in her presentation by using two or more currents at the same time, which allows the participation of many voices at once. This multivocality simultaneously introduces several disconnections, mirroring the reality of the archaeological process, which, as always, involves multi-tasking, debates, destruction, creation, and tangential thoughts. Though these disconnects are ever-present in archaeology, they are rarely accounted for or included in the recording of archaeological data, and creation of the archive, site reports, or publications.
Archaeologists on film.
In the fall of 2006, I screened the ten minute film clip for members of the Greene Farm field crew at Brown University. The archaeologists ranged in age, experience, and role on the project. Everyone agreed that the quality of the film was outstanding, the scenery beautiful, and the incorporation of multiple lines of narrative engaging. The reactions to the film’s portrayal of the excavations, some individuals’ representations, Fearnside’s editing decisions and directionality of the piece were, however, entirely mixed. Discomfort was a prevailing emotion, though not in the sense of a negative reaction, but more so as a response to the blending of the familiar (archaeology) with the unfamiliar (film/digital media); a reflection of some archaeologists’ uneasiness and uncertainty about whether and where the film should “fit” within our fields of practice.

(Artist Lee Fearnside films archaeologist Vanessa Van Doren, 2006)
The archaeologists completed lengthy survey forms that involved questions designed individually and cooperatively by Fearnside and me. The feedback was honest and candid. Crew members were not required to answer all questions, and were given the option to contribute anonymously.
As the film clip ended, the initial vocal reaction of one crew member was that the film should be renamed, “The Loss of Laughter and Erroneous Editing Decisions”. Everyone laughed, some agreed. Why did Fearnside edit out the fun of doing archaeology? Does that have nothing to do with creating knowledge and understanding history? Why do her scenes jump around “unsystematically”? Shouldn’t she be documenting the chronology of the fieldwork, area by area? Others questioned, “Exactly what stories are being told here? And who are telling them? (from an anonymous survey response)” Sure, these were comments that the crew probably would not have offered if Fearnside was in the room, but they should not be dismissed for their lightheartedness or potential flippancy. Instead, they should make us think and ask as archaeologists, what are we doing by involving ourselves in this collaboration? What is coming out of this? And, how will it impact our established methodologies?
Below are short examples of the survey questions and responses. Each archaeologist’s response reflects part of the dynamics involved in this collaborative process. Copies of the completed surveys can be viewed here: http://proteus.brown.edu/greenefarm/2409.
Q: How do you feel about your portrayal in the film?
A: “My face wasn’t in ANY of the images, but my voice and hand were. I thought my voice sounded funny and I’m not sure if I’m telling the “proper story””
Q:Does the film capture the working environment, moods, and relationships between people at the site?
A: “No. Captured the actions of archaeology – but not the dynamics of the actors. The many trials and tribulations that are always present at archaeology projects and are important parts of knowledge creation are not documented here. “
Q: What do you think about films created by artists without archaeological training, and the value of these films for archaeologists and their projects?
A: [In this case] “it is good because the public knows as much as the filmmaker, so she (the filmmaker) has a good perspective that can present the material effectively to others…”
As the discussion of the Telling Stories clip continued, the initial reactions took on a more serious tone. Disagreements arose over the role and relevance of creative documentation projects and digital media in archaeology, but everyone took away a newfound appreciation for at least some aspect of the film’s utility for archaeological practice. Yet there were still a few participants (in fact, some of the more exemplary archaeologists), who did not grasp the film’s impact on the Greene Farm project or our discipline. It is intriguing to ask why some “got it” and others did not, especially since many of these archaeologists are of a younger generation where digital media facilitates and translates countless activities in their daily lives. Although beyond the immediate scope here, this disjuncture raises vital questions about how digital media should be incorporated into teaching archaeology, and if archaeological crews should also be experimenting with media in their fields of work.
Implications for archaeologists…and beyond.
Why were parts of the film a source of discomfort for some of the archaeologists? I am using this question as a springboard to begin examining a few salient points for further discussion. These may appear fairly simplistic individually, but when taken together they completely cast the issue of the archaeologists’ discomforted response into a much more complex and multidimensional conversation about this media’s impact on our practices.
Archaeology is nonlinear.
The film is nonlinear, but so is archaeological practice. In the film, the disconnections and lack of superstructure or structured narration is, at times, disorienting and uncomfortable. These components were a source of discomfort for the archaeologists because they exposed tensions and gaps in our methods, construed time as folded and percolating, and interrupted the bundling of material into neat and tidy chronologies. The result of these disconnections is the creation of a hybrid space between the productions of the archaeologists, the artist, and the creations of each (Latour 1993, 1999). In this space, the boundaries of what we do – systematic data collection (what we tend to hold sacred) – are blurred. It is important, as archaeologists, to view these hybrid spaces and blurred boundaries as healthy and productive rather than disruptions to our established practices. On one level, the nonlinearity of the film allows us the space to revisit, reevaluate, reinterpret, and repeat the archaeology. Viewing our actions on film also provides a reality check that inspires a heightened awareness of our deeply ingrained archaeological habits and field methods. It startles us to realize that there may be a difference between what we say we do (as trained archaeologists) and what we are actually doing (as improvising archaeologists). The nonlinearity of the film creates a ripple effect; it exposes the nonlinearity of archaeological practice, the nonlinear nature of our archaeological data collection, and the nonlinearity of everything that follows from this (i.e. cataloging, reporting, etc.). The film’s images of the archaeologists working overlaid with their commentary are also vivid reminders that nothing in our practice is done in isolation. We are always surrounded by multiple actions, tasks, and voices in our work, and the results of our research – and this film – will never be a closed narrative (Witmore 2004).
Mediation.
On a related level, the film captures the processes of mediation by moving between abstract and concrete imagery, reducing and amplifying particular details, and documenting series of transformations that are often lost in the archaeological recording process (Latour 1999:72-73, Shanks 1997). As noted by Gavin Lucas, excavation has traditionally possessed a double meaning as entailing “both the recovery and understanding of archaeological remains, and at the same time the destruction of [their] context and integrity” (2001:35). As with other forms of digital media, Telling Stories captures through mediation the qualities of the material world that would otherwise be left behind by conventional archaeological methods (Latour 1999:73, Witmore 2004:149). In particular, Telling Stories visually and acoustically preserves the losses that occur through these transformations by capturing both sensory and bodily experiences, physical material and their contexts, the immediate environment, while also triggering memories of the excavation process for those involved. These preserved transformations can permit us to explore questions about how our memories, as archaeologists, are technically, socially, and formally mediated on personal and broader scales (Bowker 2005).

Archaeologists Zach Woodford and Steph Minor work while surrounded by tools for creating, recording, and losing data (2005).
Nevertheless, as the crew responses detail, it is impossible for the film to capture the entirety of any moment or experience, much the same as it is impossible for archaeological documentation to preserve and replicate data exactly. Though the element of loss remains, the incorporation of the film adds an invaluable active, as well as interactive, interpretive tool to our practice.
‘Telling Stories’ as archive and anti-archive.
As Geoffrey Bowker notes, “[t]he archive, by remembering only a certain set of facts / discoveries / observations consistently and actively engages in the forgetting of other sets” (Bowker 2005:12). In many ways, the production of Telling Stories and the production of Greene Farm as an archaeology project are both impacted by the processes and shortcomings of archiving information. Fearnside and the archaeologists both collect information for storage, processing, and constructing. Each form of data transforms into different media many times. In various and repeating orders, Fearnside interprets activities to film at Greene Farm, returns to reshoot similar scenes or interviews, views the rough footage before editing, selects material for editing, cuts and reshuffles pieces, compiles them into rough drafts of the film, and eventually produces a final cut. This is analogous to how the archaeologists select, interpret, collect, revisit, edit and translate data in their archives before publishing. In both cases, information and experiences are lost, recreated, and consolidated. Though parallel, the experience for the archaeologists viewing Telling Stories and reading a Greene Farm site report is quite different. The archaeologists are transported by the film, which is itself a mode of engagement that mediates how they access and translate archaeological practice (Shanks 1997; Witmore 2004). In it the archaeologists see themselves, hear familiar voices, remember long forgotten details, observe new things, experience the environment. Arguably, a well-written report might also return us to a sensory point, but as the survey responses indicate, the film was not initially received as being analogous to or part of archaeological practice. What might make the reactions to the film so different than reactions to an archaeological report constructed by similar processes of translation and negotiation? Perhaps one difference is that a written report is accepted as a concrete object and carries with it the authority and expertise of the author, who is usually a higher-ranking project director. Telling Stories and the involvement in digital media in archaeological practice overall introduce a dimension to practice that bypasses academic, interpretive, and creative hierarchies. It is counterproductive to view the film, created by an artist, (or digital media projects created by a field crew) as a completely separate undertaking from the excavations.
Telling Stories appears to be participating in part of an archival process in many of the same ways as archaeological practice. Yet, the active and sensory elements captured by the film heighten our awareness about how the use of film and digital media in archaeology ultimately exposes deficiencies of the archive, in that the Telling Stories and its intersection with archaeological practice is not a documentation of the Greene Farm archaeology that can stand alone as a copy or bounded representation of the site. Telling Stories successfully records both the processes of excavation and the processes of the archive at the same time by capturing some things that do not fit comfortably into either processes of excavation or archive – i.e. conversations, mistakes, sounds, views from unconventional angles – yet are vital to triggering memories and interpretations of the archaeological record at Greene Farm (Lucas 2001). Instead, as something that can be revisited repeatedly, while being viewed and interpreted differently by each individual, the creation of Telling Stories is an example of an open process in archaeological recording, or as Gavin Lucas designates, “a kind of ‘anti-archive’…that guards the heterogeneity and uniqueness of [Greene Farm] against the homogenizing tendency of the archive” (2001:46).
Art vs. Science?
Although Fearnside continues to create her film, the archaeologists their data, archaeology has met art (and vice versa) through digital media, and a third hybrid creation is emerging simultaneously. The offspring of this intersection is that the scientific practices that archaeologists hold sacred have become blurred with art and creative documentation, consequently introducing the necessity of digital media as a component of archaeological practice. In the 21st century, archaeological practice will be shaped by the degree to which we incorporate digital media into our creative processes. Therefore, it is vital that we, as archaeologists, reexamine the utility of making such sharp, and perhaps superficial, distinctions between art and science (Clack and Brittain 2007).
Concluding Thoughts.
As the Greene Farm archaeologists continued to discuss Telling Stories their initial reactions of discomfort were in part replaced by deeper examinations of our practices. In some cases, archaeologists returned to view the film multiple times, to digest and (re)excavate the film. While we, as archaeologists, look forward to a longer production, we are as eager to view how Fearnside interprets and presents the creation of knowledge by us on film as we are to view the film itself as a creation of knowledge about ourselves and our practices.
This is a partial glimpse of an experiment in progress. The discussions raised from the survey recognize the process of creating and viewing the unfinished version of Telling Stories to be as important as the eventual “finished” products of both the artist and archaeologists. Despite having similar archaeological training, it is especially interesting to realize through the survey and discussion processes how the Greene Farm archaeologists prioritize parts of knowledge so differently. Some present strong notions that archaeology is a science with no space for artistic creativity without, of course, realizing how creative our science really is (and vice versa for the artistic process). The experiment of questioning the archaeologists’ reactions to Telling Stories is only a starting point for thinking more broadly about our collaborations with non-archaeologists, teaching students with digital media, and presenting our work to public audiences, or, in other words, coming to terms with the hybrid spaces created by the intersections of art and archaeology and expanding their benefits for many audiences.
In the midst of our archaeology project, an artist has invigorated our modes of engagement by creating a documentary film for and about the overlapping layers of archaeological processes and the construction of knowledge. The Greene Farm archaeologists have translated the film into a tool of active and interpretive fieldwork (Hodder 1999, 2000; Lucas 2001). The exercise of involving creative documentation and digital media in our work should demonstrate how important it is for archaeologists to think about and actively deal with mediation in our work. In involving digital media in our work we must accept that they can change the nature of our practice, methodologically and theoretically, and even more so the nature of how we construct, transform, and translate archaeological knowledge. Such contributions can only provide richer, fuller translations of archaeology.
References
Bowker, G. 2005. Memory Practices in the Sciences. Cambridge: MIT.
Clack, T. and M. Brittain (eds.). 2007. Archaeology and the media. Oxford: Berg.
Hodder, I. 1999. The archaeological process. An introduction. Oxford: OUP.
Hodder, I. (ed.), 2000. Towards the reflexive method in archaeology. The example of Catalhoyuk. Cambridge: CUP.
Latour, B. 1993. We have never been modern. Translated, C. Porter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. 1999. Pandora’s hope. Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge: CUP.
Lucas, G. 2001. “Destruction and the rhetoric of excavation,” Norwegian archaeological review 34:35-46.
Shanks, M. 1997. “Photography and Archaeology,” in B.L. Molyneaux (ed.), The cultural life of images. Visual representation in archaeology. London: Routledge, 73-107.
Witmore, C. 2004. “On multiple fields. Between the material world and media: two cases from the Peloponnesus, Greece,” Archaeological Dialogues, 11(2):133-164.